


Everything Unholy

by farrah_yondale



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: F/F, M/M, carmilla stans don't interact, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-09-01 04:33:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16758028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farrah_yondale/pseuds/farrah_yondale
Summary: Julia rescues Hector from Carmilla. Alucard rescues Hector from himself.





	1. I.

White-hot bone and marrow thick as sludge. Carcasses, pieces of tissue, splintered muscle. The bodily equivalent of food scrapings, cake at the edge of an oven. Useless things.

 _By everything unholy,_ Hector recited the mantra, age-old, older than him. Older than living memory. Something before ancient and almost forgotten. _Show me my desire, show me the power of old._

Cackles across his mind. Laughter at God. They were like Speakers, in a way, he suddenly thought, hiding from Him, working against Him. Strange, how the world seemed to separate demon and human so starkly when there was hardly a difference at all.

Hector visibly flinched. He was brought back out of his mind, back to thoughts he didn’t want to dwell on. He was in a workshop, identical to the one Dracula had bestowed upon him, the chain around his neck sickeningly cold and tight.

His hands shook. Something in his body broke. He leaned forward against the black slab of his workbench and retched spit.

Carmilla demanded so much of him. Where Dracula let Hector form an army at his own pace, over the course of a year, Carmilla demanded speed— _Carmilla, how he hated that name, that foul, cunning vampire, that soft, supple neck he could just see himself wringing his hands around, squeezing every little drop of human blood she had sucked out of her till she screamed, broke, died in agony_ —Hector shook again when he remembered where he was. Breathed deep.

It took a hefty toll on his body.

At first, he saw his wavering in skill as a drawback. His demons sometimes died suddenly, their hearts giving out or kidneys shutting down. Then he realized it a boon. He could not oppose Carmilla or her forces in this state, not directly, but at the very least he could weaken her demon army, let her think the tide of battle was in her favor, only to realize her demands from Hector led to her own demise. Hector smiled at the thought.

Then felt the tug of his collar and clenched his teeth in anger.

The blue glow of his necromancy shined in the eyes of the demon laid out across his workbench. They pulsed, glowed like twin fireflies. For a second, he was sure it had worked.

Then something cracked. The demon writhed in its place, screeching in pain, clutching desperately at its chest like its heart had stopped while the rest of it still breathed. Its pain was fleeting. The next second, it died.

Hector pressed his hands against the table and wept.

Alucard sat on his father’s throne. It was cool, hard, decidedly uncomfortable. He thought against reclining on it and stood. He could find some other place to sulk.

Stepping through these halls felt like stepping through memories. Something long-lost but still familiar. He had slept for an entire year. Through his perspective, he had only left this castle for a few days, and yet something about it struck him as unfamiliar. Other vampires had lived and walked through its structure while he had been gone, the air felt different.

Alucard returned to his father’s study. It was odd to see it without a hearth burning. The place had always been a source of comfort to him. Warm and cozy, a place where a loving mother and father would recite stories and teach him things about the outside world. A complete contrast to the rest of Dracula’s stone cold palace and high ceilings.

His thoughts were interrupted by the small patter of feet.

His hand went automatically to his sword. An invader? A leftover demon in his father’s army? When Alucard turned back towards the threshold, he was surprised to find instead a small dog, its eye and leg missing the skin and muscle. One of his father’s necromancers must have summoned it back from the dead.

The dog yipped excitedly at the sight of a new friend. Alucard sighed, let his shoulders go lax and leaned down to pet its head.

“Aren’t you an adorable little abomination against God?” He smiled. “Although I suppose that makes two of us.”

The dog, ignorant of the unhanded compliment, wagged its tail and panted eagerly. It circled itself a few times and then trotted over to Dracula’s chair, whining sadly.

“Do you miss him, too?” Alucard asked. He had long overcome feeling silly talking to things that couldn’t understand him. He had asked Trevor and Sypha for solitude and had come to find comfort in it. Talking to the walls seemed less and less ridiculous as the days went by.

The dog sat, whined again and then looked up at Alucard and wagged its tail. Alucard picked the thing up, so tiny in his hands, and continued on.

“I wonder…what side of my father did you see? What side did the magician who brought you back see?”

There were so few things Hector hated on this earth.

But the sound of chains rattling, he absolutely despised.

Carmilla curled one of her perfectly manicured fingernails around the chain binding him to her and screeched with laughter. It was her usual way of greeting him these days. She called him puppy, and like a master might only coo and command their dog, so too did she speak to Hector only in threats disguised as sweet nothings.

Today was one of the few days where he was privileged with an actual conversation.

“Hector, _darling_ ,” she giggled. Hector recoiled at the way she said it. She made sure to visit him only at night, at the peak of her strength where he could not overpower her even at his best. When he kept his head down, made no motion towards her, she tugged on the chain again. Hector gasped reflexively.

One of those nails brushed gently over his cheek. “Don’t ignore me, puppy.”

He dared to look directly into her eyes. “I should spit in your face.”

Carmilla giggled. “So why don’t you?” Her eyes flashed. _Of course you wouldn’t_ , they said. He feared being beaten.

She took his silence as rebellion. Raised her hand. Hector flinched, but her hand hung in the air, frozen in place by a loud bang from outside Hector’s room.

“What was that?” Carmilla looked annoyed, glancing back at the closed door.

For a moment there was only heavy silence.

And then there were a few shouts of Carmilla’s guards from outside, the squelch of something sharp running through their organs, a gust of wind and fire. The door flew open, unhinged by the force. The glow of magic sprung from the dust.

At the threshold stood a woman in a magenta dress. Her skin was dark brown, hair meticulously braided and tied back. Between delicate, brown hands, she held a staff of yew. Her eyelids drooped, eyes glassy green and distant, as though she saw the world not through her eyes at all.

Carmilla did not bother to ask who she was. She didn’t spare a moment to jump at her.

The woman was undeterred. Unflinching, she raised her staff with one hand, raised two fingers with the other and let out a jet of fire. Carmilla dodged to the side, twirling in her dress, and lunged at her again. Hector fully expected Carmilla to slit her throat clean, but when her nails tried to make contact with the woman’s neck, nothing happened.

“Magic,” Carmilla hissed. Defensive magic. Even with fire bursting from her fingertips, this woman managed to keep a shield between herself and Carmilla. Hector might have been impressed if he didn’t fear for his life.

And rightfully so. Carmilla’s wide eyes slid over to where Hector stood. That manipulative, cunning side of her mind always seemed to be at work. She could not hurt this woman. So she would hurt the other human in the room. Before Hector could even blink, Carmilla was at his throat, knife-sharp nails curling around his skin.

“You came here to rescue him, didn’t you?” Carmilla’s voice was light, almost joyous with laughter. Sadist. “I can’t see what else would bring you here.” She ran her nail across Hector’s skin, across the pulse hammering in his neck. “Kill me, and I’ll take him with me.”

Hector felt a bead of sweat run down his temple.

To his shock, the magician smiled. “Go ahead. He’s not what I’m here for.”

 _God._ He really was going to die in this hellhole. He was going to die with a chain around his neck, as someone’s pet, without ever having amended for his mistakes. Without ever having apologized to Lord Dracula—not for his betrayal, but for trusting Carmilla over his teacher, his mentor.

Carmilla sliced her hand across his throat. She, and Hector, for that matter, expected Hector to crumple at her feet, bleed out, probably die. But, like the way Carmilla could not seem to penetrate this magician, she did not harm Hector. She hesitated.

This was his chance. Hector threw his chain around her neck, wrapped tight. Held her back. He wasn’t strong enough to hold her, but the fraction of a second he had her was enough. A rod of ice flew past, staked Carmilla’s heart, and she let out a screech.

She trembled in Hector’s arms.

Ran her fingers across his chin. _Lovingly_. The same way his parents would run their hands along his face after promising they loved him.

“Hector…” Carmilla wheezed. Blood spilled over her mouth. She sunk to the floor. Her eyes stared at him in desperation, seeking forgiveness.

Hector spat in her face and watched her die.

“You protected me.”

It was more than any other human had done for Hector in his life.

“And why shouldn’t I?” She said it matter-of-factly. It was so antithetical to Hector’s entire life, where protecting and caring were never a given. Where abuse and pain were accompanied with that rhetorical question.

The woman pressed two of her fingers to the collar bound tight around Hector’s neck. The staff in her other hand glowed red, and within seconds, the metal around him disintegrated. Hector swallowed.

“I would not have burned you,” she assured, smiling slightly. Did she think his trust of her was a given? Certainly, he trusted her more than Carmilla, more than any human he had known thus far. But he would not make the same mistake he had made with the corpse laying at their feet.

Hector responded by rubbing his neck.

“What are you doing here?” he finally asked, after a beat of silence.

“Looking for my brother,” the woman answered promptly. “I heard there was a Devil Forgemaster here and thought it might be Isaac.”

“Brother? I didn’t know Isaac had a sister.”

The woman was quiet for a minute, contemplative. “He had me hidden away in the Carpathians. For my safety. I’ve been looking for him,” she added as an afterthought.

“So you didn’t come to rescue me?” he only meant it as a question, but the woman seemed to detect the wounded note in his voice. She read between the lines.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t regret coming down here.”

“Down here?”

“You don’t know where we are?”

Hector’s eyes flitted to Carmilla’s body. “I was beaten unconscious and woke up here. I don’t even know what town or country we’re in.”

“She beat you?” Something like bloodlust suddenly flared in the woman’s hazy eyes. Up to this point, they seemed so still, like a lake lapping gently against the grass. It was like watching a wave ripple across the water, something urgent and violent.

When Hector said nothing, she stared at Carmilla’s corpse. “If I had known, I would not have shown her such mercy. I mistook her for another lackey.” She prodded Carmilla’s cheek with her staff. Then turned her head over with the tip of her boot.

“How shall I destroy her for you?” A pause. “Or would you rather do it yourself?”

Hector turned his head away immediately. He swallowed that base desire to see Carmilla’s corpse desecrated, to parade pieces of her body out in the streets out of revenge. “I’d rather not.”

“A gentle soul, I see.” Hector thought she might be smiling again, but he didn’t turn. He saw, only from his periphery, a light glow and a fire burn. She must have been burning the body.

“What is your name?” he asked, staring at some spot on the wall.

“Julia. Julia Laforeze. And yours?”

“Hector.” The firelight ebbed away and Hector finally bothered to turn, glancing at the pile of ash at Julia’s feet.

“Very well, Hector. Would you follow me out of here?”

“I don’t have much of a choice.”

Julia looked like she might say something, but then thought against it. Instead, she reached out her free hand for him to take it.

Hector clasped it, surprised by how warm and soft her hand was, and let her lead him into the sunlight.

His father’s castle was a fortress. If its defenses wouldn’t deter demons from attacking, the respect Dracula garnered amongst the undead would. But Alucard was not his father.

For better or worse, he was not his father.

He did not expect an attack so soon. He expected silence, the earth and the dark mourning. Trevor and Sypha had gone off somewhere to the Speakers, or to Braila by now perhaps. He expected them to be here to help him ward off an attack.

But the demon hordes came for him anyway.

He wasn’t sure if they attacked haphazardly without a master to control them now, or if the attack on the castle was deliberate. Did they seek power? An old home? Or a way back into hell?

Regardless, Alucard was hard-pressed to really care about that currently.

He let his sword levitate at his side and shifted wolf. It was easier to deal with demons—so animal-like—when he was an animal himself. They relied on instinct and the cut of blood, and in turn so did he.

But it would not serve him well enough.

Julia led Hector up a winding staircase, down some halls, so dark and rank he could hardly fathom how Julia knew which way to go. He did not let go of her hand and kept quiet all the way, preferring the silence.

He spoke only when they broke to the surface, when Julia jarred a door open and the sunlight hit Hector’s face in God knew how long. It was almost sunset, but after so long in darkness, his eyes took a while to adjust.

“Where are we?” he asked, blinking.

“Arges, Wallachia.”

Hector pressed a hand to his forehead to block out the sun. “You really came all this way to save a Forgemaster from their bonds? Knowing it might not even be Isaac?”

“You think I’d just let some white bitch do whatever she wants to someone in my town?”

“Your town?”

“I protect it. From the mountains. Even if I hadn’t heard the rumors of the Devil Forgemaster locked away, I would have destroyed that little operation.”

Hector couldn’t help but smile. “You know, you wouldn’t have to tell me your Isaac’s sister. You two seem to be about the only humans I can stand.”

Julia glanced at him and laughed. “And you are a definitely a Forgemaster.” Her amusement evaporated immediately. Her hand was still clasped around Hector’s, like a mother or a sister might hold desperately to their child. Something in her face became somber.

“I have never understood…” she continued on, voice low. She began to lead to him down the streets. “My brother’s hatred of humanity. There is evil, so much evil. But there is good, too, and don’t we have an obligation to contribute to it? Why add to evil and pain when we can add to the brightness and hope of the world?”

Hector swallowed his rage on the subject. He hated humans, perhaps less vehemently than Isaac did, but nonetheless, the thought of showing humans love or mercy was out of the question. And yet, he could not find fault with this wonderful, kind human he had just met. She struck him with the same childish innocence he had before his parents taught him otherwise.

So he answered kindly, if only for her sake. “Humans brought this punishment on themselves. If they wanted to be treated with love and kindness, perhaps they should have done the same to the most vulnerable of their kind, instead of tossing us to the side.” He regretted letting the bile rise in his throat. “Perhaps you would think the same if you had endured the same horrors we have.”

Julia stopped down her path. Hector felt his stomach plummet. He had definitely angered her.

She turned, eyebrows furrowed. “You think me some child that knows nothing of the world? I know what humans have done to my brother. And there are things that humans have done to _me_ that would make your necromancy undo itself out of terror.” To his relief, it was not a fury that possessed her. She tugged on his hand and began to lead him into the marketplace of Arges again. “Do not underestimate me.”

Hector tightened his grip around her hand and vowed to himself that he would never.

Alucard limped in his wolf form. He had neither the time nor sense to transform. Perhaps someone would be more likely to take pity on him if he looked human, but he was too tired to think. Too tired to do anything but run.

He could feel his vision fading, the blood dripping down his leg and leaving an open trail for the demons to follow.

“I don’t go near Speakers,” Julia had said when they had approached their caravans. They would have made a good source for a horse to get them home. Speakers were usually more than willing to help those in need.

At first, Hector attributed this to a fault of Julia’s: that she disliked Speakers, that she was a hypocrite for demanding kindness and love only to show none of it to the Speakers. Only Hector realized as they walked past that it was the Speakers who gave Julia hard glances and curt stares. He could not fathom what Julia had done to incur the wrath of the Speakers. They were hardly a hostile lot.

A pity. Hector hardly spoke to people, but he knew bargaining with or asking a Speaker for a favor was generally warmer than how most Wallachians treated him. The stall Julia settled on haggling with seated a severe, spindly old woman. Hector wouldn’t have given her a second glance. But Julia did not shy away from confrontation, it would seem.

“She has the cheapest horses,” Julia explained later. Perhaps Hector had just been spoiled by Dracula. He could avoid the question of money when his mentor had an abundance of it. 

She sat comfortably behind him on the stocky mare. He felt embarrassed having her lead the way like he was a child, but he was too exhausted to protest.

Instead, he focused his attention on the fresh air, the flowers peeking through wet autumn leaves. When Carmilla had captured him, it had been the end of winter, and now the air seemed to be alive with spring. He could hardly tell time trapped in Carmilla’s prison, but it must have been a full year since he had seen daylight.

They followed the trail along the mountains, not slowing down even as Hector sensed the presence of demons. The mare whinnied in protest a few times, before Julia assured her with a pat and spurred her forward.

They did not speak. Julia, he supposed, was used to silence. And Hector was too tired to want conversation. They spoke only when they spotted demons circling the mountains above, and they saw a white wolf curled up dead as they rounded a jutting rock.

“Poor thing,” Julia cried out, steering their horse to a stop.

Hector was exhausted but his sympathy towards animals always overrode every sensible bone in his body. He slipped off the mare without so much as a word, and hurried over to the corpse.

Carmilla had taken away his hammer, for fear of it being used against her, but he still had the two coins that channeled his necromancy. Hector cradled the wolf’s head in his lap, running his fingers soothingly through the bloodied fur. He realized it was breathing. However shallow, there was definitely the slight rise and fall of its chest.

“Wait,” he said. “It’s not dead.”

Julia slipped off the horse, staff in hand. “Then it’s my realm of magic.”

Hector turned and watched as she knelt to the wolf’s feet. Her hand hovered over its gaping wound as a faint glow lit up around her staff. The way she channeled her magic reminded him of how he channeled his, but the nature of it was entirely different. Hector’s shoulders went lax as the wolf’s breathing slowly returned to a regular pace.

“That magic you cast…” Hector said. “It’s Speaker magic.”

“Yes.” Julia’s eyebrows furrowed slightly in musing, as if what he said was offensive. “It is.”

“Speakers don’t use staffs.” He never learned to keep his mouth shut, his parents always used to say.

Julia inhaled, visibly. “Speakers don’t. Ex-Speakers do.”

Julia did not raise her voice, or even weave fire into her words. She seemed to understand Hector’s delicate nature, that he would recoil like an admonished child if she scolded him. But there was enough hurt in her eyes for Hector to understand. He did not understand words. But he understood eyes.

He said nothing.

He turned back to the white wolf. It whined into Hector’s hands, butting its snout into his abdomen. Animals tended to find comfort in Hector, but this one seemed half-conscious, unaware of exactly what warmth it sought.

Hector cradled the wolf against his lap and petted it to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a one-shot and then...it took me 4k words just to have Hector and Alucard meet. Shoot me. I want to say, "I promise this won't get long and it'll only be a few chapters of cute gay shit" but we all know that'd be a lie. 
> 
> Also, not sure how all the couples play out. Originally I was going to keep Isaac 10,000 ft away from this fic because...you think I wanna fix that mess? No thanks. But you all know how much I hate myself and how powerful spite can be, so he might show up and the tagged relationships might change. It'll be gay and tender, though, I promise you that.


	2. II.

The first thing he smelled wasn’t the fire or all his mother’s herbs going up in smoke, but the faint sillage of acetone on a priest’s breath, the ever-present warning of a holy man in the vicinity. They fasted, his mother had explained, and it was why that strange odor stuck to them. It always made his hair raise, and he would wrap his fist in his mother’s dress and tear her away to safety.

Priests were his boogeymen, the monsters under the bed his father spoke of.

But that day, Lisa had sent her son out into the woods to fetch supplies—yarrow, foxglove, cobwebs and moss, he still remembered, _he still remembered the lilt of her voice, the way she’d said all those mundane words, the soft caress of her finger over his cheek before he left and was so, so sure he’d see her again_. He had trotted into the forest in his wolf form with a basket between his jaws and never thought that this was more than an ordinary day.

Most local mobs would not touch a hair on Lisa’s head, for fear of inciting Dracula’s rage or his son’s. Though most of them knew him as Alucard—the opposite of his father, they would say, gentle, kind, typically seen in public with his mother tending to the wounded alongside her—they still feared his power. They would not harm what they believed the only thing standing in his way between them and a series of brutal murders.

So it was the Church, ever arrogant and wealthy, that would dare tread this path. After all, they had God on their side, or so they thought. And how better to please God than trap an emissary of the Devil?

Alucard would later realize it was planned, that the Church had waited before seizing hold of her house, that they had spent the last decade conniving and hiding in the shadows figuring out all his weaknesses.

By the time that scent had him on alert, it was already too late.

An arrow shot out from the dark, hissing past his ear and embedding into the tree behind him. Alucard dropped his empty basket and growled. He thought it a hunter or superstitious priests. He didn’t think of his mother then.

He tried to run. Another arrow whizzed past and cut through the skin on his leg. He kept running and thought nothing of the wound, not until he felt his leg go numb and realized the tip had been doused in holy water. Holy water did not kill or burn him like it did full vampires, but it slowed him down, and without the use of his leg, he could hardly outrun a mob.

And then he smelled the smoke.

Saw the fire burning where his mother’s cottage was supposed to stand. He heard his mother cry out, though he could not make out what she said.

Alucard let out a soft whine. He wanted to head back, barrel through the priests with their crossbows and blessed nets, but his leg would not obey him. He tried anyway.

Another arrow shot out from the crowd of dark robes and this time embedded straight into his shoulder and drew blood. But it was not the blood that bothered him. It was the numbness and the burning that seared down his body. He couldn’t walk. He could barely see when the priests threw a net over him and held him down. He remembered thrashing in the trap, biting against the rope and ignoring the way his mouth burned at the contact.

He howled.

He knew his mother would not betray him. She would not say his name or give away that he was near, but when he cried out in pain, Lisa must have known that they already had him.

“Adrian!” His ears twitched. He could hear her, though he doubted the priests beside him could. “Run!”

_It’s too late_ , he wanted to cry back. He wanted to tear out of the net and run to his mother. At least see her face, be beside her. Call his father for him. _Tell her he loved her._ All these thoughts swarmed erratically across his lucid mind, before he collapsed and the world went black.

Alucard awoke in the lap of a stranger.

At first, having dreamt of his mother, he mistook the soft caresses in his fur as Lisa’s. It was all right. This had all just been one long, horrible nightmare, and he would blink his eyes open, and his mother and father would be right there, as they had always been, and Lisa would call him silly for dreaming of her dying.

But then his consciousness and his senses returned to him, and he realized the hand that brushed through his fur did not have the same callouses as his mother’s from scrubbing and mixing herbs. They were brown and soft and they smelled strongly of magic. Strongly of his father’s hands. But his father did not have hands this small.

“You’re up,” the man said, smiling wide. His hair was white and reached just to his shoulders. Alucard wondered what stresses he had suffered in life to be so young and have white hair. “You gave us a scare. We thought you were dead until Julia mended your wounds.”

Julia. The name made Alucard’s ears flick. He remembered a young woman with that name who had studied medicine under his mother. The thought made his heart sink.

A sword clattered next to his feet. Alucard sat up, alert like a wolf sensing prey. A woman with dark skin and long braids stood in front of him.

“This is Lisa Tepes’s sword.” She said it like an accusation. Of course. What would a white wolf be doing with Lisa Tepes’s sword, unless they were her son in another form?

Alucard hesitated to transform. Doing so would practically be an admittance, and he wasn’t sure what would follow by giving up his identity. This woman _was_ the Julia in his memories, and while she hadn’t sided with Dracula in the final battle, he wasn’t sure where her loyalties lay. And the man beside her. Alucard could only guess he was one of Dracula’s Devil Forgemasters, given the essence of magic burning from his hands.

“You’re Dracula’s son,” the man said, but there was no anger in his voice, strangely enough.

Julia’s eyes softened then, as if contemplating something of great importance. Then she said, “Dracula is dead, Hector.”

And Alucard understood.

He hadn’t known. That explained his lukewarm response to Alucard’s identity. He supposed over the last month, he and his companions had been rightfully attributed to Dracula’s downfall, but he wondered, again, what this man had been through to warrant his ignorance. Hardly anyone in Wallachia hadn’t already formed some sort of legend involving the deathly still castle on the horizon.

“What?” Hector burst out, sitting up so abruptly that Alucard tumbled over and let out a muted whine in protest. “When?”

Alucard transformed then. He supposed, at the very least, it would be easier to defend himself if he could actually speak. 

“About a month ago,” Alucard said. He took no pride in admitting it. “My companions and I laid waste to Dracula’s armies, his generals. And we…”

Alucard was surprised to feel Julia’s hand on his shoulder. 

“A month ago? Wait, how long was I…When was the attack on Braila?”

“A month ago,” Julia answered.

Hector looked between the two of them, as if they’d been hiding a huge secret from him.

“It’s my fault,” Hector burst out. “It’s my fault. If I had been there…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alucard almost hissed out. What did this man hope to achieve forfeiting his life for a dead man walking? “We tore through an army of vampires before reaching my father. What difference would one human make?”

Hector’s eyes flashed with realization and he ignored Alucard’s rhetorical question. “Isaac…What happened to Isaac? Was he there with Lord Dracula?”

Alucard felt Julia’s hand twitch over his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Alucard admitted. “I saw him when we followed my father to his study. But when we reached there he was gone.”

He felt Julia relax behind him.

“It’s my fault…” Hector whispered again, leaning forward. And Alucard went quiet, when the man crumpled to the floor and wept openly. He could not fault him or judge him. Alucard knew he was a Devil Forgemaster but he could only guess Hector’s relationship with his father, and he knew how much it hurt to lose the man. He might have been in this same position a month ago, at Trevor and Sypha’s feet, if he had not made flimsy excuses for them to leave him alone.

Silently, Julia helped Hector up and led the two of them further into the mountains.

“It felt like a year.”

Up till this point, Hector had been curled up on Julia’s sofa wrapped in a blanket. He’d kept his eyes closed and been so quiet, Julia and Alucard had assumed he’d fallen asleep. But now he sat, still as ever, with his gray eyes blinking and staring at Alucard.

Alucard returned his statement with a questioning look.

“Carmilla. The vampire. She…” Hector swallowed. “She…” He sighed, and suddenly crumpled into the blanket. “It’s my fault,” he cried out again, voice breaking.

Julia, who’d been in the other room brewing tea, was brought in by the sound of Hector’s voice. She crept behind the couch and laid an appeasing hand over his shoulder, eyes narrowing with pity. In her other hand, she held a steaming cup of tea.

“Drink this. It’ll soothe your nerves.”

Hector uncurled in his seat and took up Julia’s offer. He accepted the tea in shaking hands and took a hesitant sip. Then another, and another, until he’d swallowed half the cup and he finally stopped shaking.

“I betrayed Dracula.”

Alucard listened.

“Carmilla took advantage of my hesitancy to wipe out the human race. Lord Dracula made certain promises, that he wouldn’t harm the innocent. That he’d only contain them. But he didn’t see to it. Carmilla appealed to my compassion, but she never intended to do anything except use me for her own army. She had me betray Lord Dracula and then betrayed me. She…” Alucard saw Hector shake minutely again and then take another sip of his tea. “She had me chained and locked up. It’s only been a month. It felt like a fucking year.”

Alucard saw tears swim in Hector’s eyes before Julia sat beside him and gently pried the empty cup from his fingers.

“That’s enough,” Julia said, smoothing a hand over Hector’s head. “Go sleep in the other room.”

Wordlessly, Hector obliged. He must have been exhausted from all that and was clearly too tired to protest otherwise. He stood, letting the blanket drop, and disappeared into the room over.

“What a bitch,” Julia concluded, apparently in reference to Carmilla. She set the cup down in front of her.

Alucard wanted to laugh, but he wholeheartedly agreed. Carmilla was awful. And now he understood why Dracula had always kept him distant from his own people. Vampires could be kind, but to mistakenly trust one would undo a man completely. He wondered what sort of man his father could be to place his trust in a woman like that.

“I can’t imagine what he’s been through,” Alucard finally said.

He thought he saw something violent flash momentarily in Julia’s soft eyes. “You know I found him today in a…a damn cellar. They’d made a worktable and everything. Overworking him. Carmilla had him in chained collar, his feet were swollen. I killed her before I even knew who she was. If I had known.” Julia gritted her teeth. “I would have tortured her.”

And it occurred to Alucard he would never want Julia as an enemy.

“You’re like Isaac,” he couldn’t help but say. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He’d known Julia as Lisa’s pupil, but she had been just as much of a mystery to him as any of the other village girls his mother had aided.

And just as swiftly, the easy calm returned to her eyes. “You knew my brother?”

“Yes.” He remembered Isaac, the Devil Forgemaster his father spoke highly of, praised like his own son. But the memory was too painful right now, because it made him remember his childhood.

Julia seemed to notice and didn’t press him further. “You should sleep, too,” she said.

“I don’t need to. I spent a year in a vault under Gresit.”

“Then rest. Lay in the dark. But rest all the same.”

“It’s dark. I can’t sleep in the dark.”

Hector’s voice came just as Alucard had laid himself to sleep. Julia had a separate room set aside for the two of them, two twin beds that usually housed her patients. Hector had chosen the bed closer to the door, thinking it might alleviate some of his anxieties about sleeping in a closed space, but he had quickly sat up, and the tremor in his voice was practically palpable.

The next few words out of Hector’s mouth were unintelligible and panicked.

“Relax.” Alucard’s voice cut through the dark, calmed him somewhat. “I’m lighting a candle.”

Alucard thought he was staring at the face of a stranger when the candle lit up the room. Hector’s face was ghostly pale, soaked with sweat, like he had just witnessed some unspeakable horror unfold in front of him. His eyes were wide and only lost the distant look in them when Alucard dared to lay his hand over his.

“Are you all right?”

It seemed to sink into Hector that the room was no longer dark, that he was not in a prison or a dungeon but safe in Julia’s cottage, and that he had no reason to be afraid of a chain or a beating.

“Fine,” Hector sighed. He was still shaking, but his voice, at least, was even. “Sorry, I just…” Alucard watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Nightmare. Even when I was in the other room. I was so dead tired, I fell asleep but I woke up from...”

“It’s fine.” Alucard remembered the way his mother spoke to her patients and asked, “Do you want water?”

“No, I’m fine. I just feel…a little numb.”

Alucard wasn’t sure what compelled him to say it, but he did. “That’s how I feel.”

Maybe it was the thread of a connection. The fact that both of them had betrayed Dracula and suffered deep trauma because of it, in a way Sypha or Trevor could never understand. He felt foolish for thinking something so fleeting and whimsical, but he couldn’t help thinking so. Maybe it was the dark and quiet intimacy of the night.

Strangely enough, Hector smiled. “You feel like you betrayed Lord Dracula?”

Alucard said nothing. He was surprised to find Hector’s fingers entwined around his, in a comforting gesture.

He said nothing, but the two of them shared the silence, the warmth of the candlelight like that for a while. There was nothing to say except self-deprecating nonsense, probably. Alucard couldn’t think of anything that could appease himself, so he doubted any words would appease Hector.

“It’s awful.” Hector swallowed, staring at their hands. “Everything that happened. Doctor Tepes’s death…Lord Dracula’s madness… His own son having to kill him.” His eyes dared to flit up to meet Alucard’s. “I can’t imagine how you feel.”

Alucard wanted to tear away. He could feel tears burning at his eyes again, the way they had in his father’s study the day after Dracula had died. But he couldn’t bring himself to cry in front of a man who’d just gone through a worse ordeal. He buried his head in the sheets to quiet himself, but he didn’t cry.

Hector ran a gentle hand through Alucard’s hair. His caresses were so soft and comforting. They felt like magic and Dracula’s castle, like necromancy and familiar things. Alucard could imagine himself by the fireside, head in his mother’s lap as she murmured stories to him. He could sleep right here, even though he didn’t need to.

Alucard turned his head to speak.

“Would you like to go to the castle tomorrow?” he asked.

He saw the candlelight flicker from a stray breeze. “Yes,” Hector replied.

And just like that, somehow, Hector pulled him into bed with him and wrapped the two of them snugly in his blankets, and Alucard slept more soundly than he had in over a year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: this won't become long, i swear  
> me, 7k words into a fic that hasn't even reached any sort of romance yet: fuck


	3. III.

Sypha’s hand was warm and gentle around Alucard’s. Amazing, how she commanded silence as expertly as she did the spoken word. She had a whole catalog of words in languages Alucard had probably never heard of, but she didn’t need any of them to convey the love in her eyes.

“I never told you,” he started, squeezing her hand gently. “My mother used to treat Speakers.”

Sypha’s face lit up in the morning light and she smiled. “I knew of a doctor on the outskirts of Wallachia. All the Speakers used to tell me how she treated them.”

“Lupu,” Alucard said, remembering his old home.

“I didn’t know that was your mother.” The look in her eyes now is one of pity, of mourning. Alucard wondered if his father could have been spared of all this rage, if only he had seen more eyes like Sypha’s, instead of ones like the priests who took away his mother.

Sypha turned then, to face Alucard instead of stand beside him. She clasped both of his hands.

“Alucard, just say it. Say that you want us to stay and we will.”

In the last few days of Trevor and Sypha’s preparation for their journey, Sypha had asked the question countless times. As if his response would change. Part of him felt loved at the tenderness. Part of him was annoyed.

The annoyance surfaced this time.

“Enough,” he admonished and slipped his fingers out of her grasp. “Sypha, I won’t hurt myself.” She flinched at the implication. Better to have just gotten to the point, he supposed. He could see that fear swimming in her eyes every time the subject was breached. “I chose to stay awake…and besides, I…I need to protect this place, if nothing else.”

“Alucard…” she started, brushing her hand over his shoulder.

“Just go!”

His voice echoed off the walls of the castle, but Sypha did not flinch this time or turn away. She ran her hand down the length of his arm, pulled him toward her and hugged him tight.

“Don’t give them the evil eye, Julia.”

Her heart hitched at the thought. _Evil eye_. She’d always thought that a silly Speaker tradition. Nonsense. You didn’t put jealousy on someone by accident, and not everything bad that happened to a person was because of the evil eye, like some old grandmothers loved to rave on about.

But now she felt herself wanting. The thought had been so ingrained in her. Even after she’d left the Speakers, their traditions, their teachings stayed in her heart. She almost wished she could hear an old grandmother rave about the evil eye now.

Julia glanced at Hector and Alucard sleeping under the same sheet. She was surprised her movements hadn’t at least stirred Alucard’s sharp ears. The morning light peeked through her patterned curtains. It was still early, probably much too early for men more comfortable with the dark.

Julia hugged the tray of food in her arms close. A dish of rice and pickled fish she’d made, in case Hector or Alucard were hungry.

Her ties to her Speaker heritage seemed simultaneously out of reach and inescapable. Her magic and memory would ebb away in time, but the foods she prepared, the beliefs she shared, she could never let go.

Julia set the tray on a nearby coffee table with a clack and sighed. “It’s too early for this self-pity.”

She glanced back at the two men, who were still huddled close and sleeping soundly. She smiled to herself and let herself out of the room.

Hector was the first to rise. Not with a jerk, as he might have if Alucard hadn’t been tucked snugly beside him, or in a sweat, like he would have if his night had been riddled with nightmares, but peacefully, slowly. Like all the awful ways Carmilla had treated him had just been a short-lived dream, a shock for the morning until he realized nothing had ever hurt him.

But he knew it had been real. The throbbing pain in his neck still made him jump sometimes.

For now, however, he was in a bed. Decidedly warm. _Surprisingly_ warm, with a half-vampire lying beside him. Even more surprising was the fact that Alucard did not stir at all from Hector’s movements. Despite that, Hector did not want to wake him. He did not know what ordeals Dracula’s son had gone through, or how much he needed this sleep, so he laid in bed, still as he could manage, until finally, Alucard began to stir.

“Good morning,” Alucard mumbled. Hector briefly wondered if half-vampires had morning breath, too, but Alucard’s lips had hardly moved, and most of what he said had been swallowed by his pillow.

Hector smiled in reply and sat up from his place in the bed.

“There’s food,” Hector said, spotting the tray on the coffee table. “That’s always a decent incentive to get me out of bed.”

Now was the matter of actually getting out of bed. Alucard did not seem to care about food or Hector’s access to it, because he remained limp as the sheets surrounding the two of them. Hector untangled what he could from around his legs, slipped out his feet from the covers and then gently maneuvered himself over Alucard.

Which ended in him tripping and sending both of them to the floor.

They both hit the floor with a thud. Too tired to do or say anything, neither of them protested or moved from their position on the floor, until Julia barged through the door.

“Are you two all—” She ended her exclamation with a relieved sigh when she saw them both on the floor.

“Yes,” Alucard replied drily, rubbing the back of his head. “Although, I think Hector may have figured out the most effective way to kill a dhampir.”

“If it were that easy, I doubt you would have made it through the night sleeping next to me.”

“Look at you two, already best friends,” Julia teased.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Alucard replied. “Although Hector does make a very good pillow.”

“Enough!” Julia sighed. “I’m not used to having a married couple argue constantly under my roof—” Hector and Alucard both opened their mouths to protest, but Julia silenced both of them with a finger. “Shut up and eat.” Thoroughly admonished, the two men silently shuffled to the table and began to pick at the fish. “Alucard, would you like tea?”

“I don’t get tea?” Hector protested, voice muffled from the rice in his mouth.

Julia gave him a glare and he swallowed his food in silence.

“No thank you, Julia,” Alucard replied.

Julia turned to leave and stopped only to threaten them, “If you don’t finish all that food, I’ll kick you out of my house.”

Hector swallowed as if to answer, and Julia shut the door behind her.

“Shouldn’t be a problem since we’re leaving today,” Hector said. Alucard chuckled.

“Are we really, then?”

“Yes,” Hector replied, helping himself to more food. At this rate, it would hardly be a problem for him to finish all of it. “Why not?”

“You don’t have any family to go to? Or anywhere else to be?”

“Lord Dracula was my family, as far as I’m concerned. And…maybe. But I want to see the place first.”

 _Pay my respects_.

He didn’t want to say that out loud. The subject of Lord Dracula’s demise was likely a touchy one for Alucard. Even if he’d been the one to slay him, Hector, of all people, knew what it was like to love the man and despise his actions. If Carmilla hadn’t forced him away, Hector might have sided with Alucard and his friends.

Despite that, Alucard interpreted his silence. “You’re not angry with me for killing Dracula?”

“No more than you are at yourself.”

Alucard flinched visibly at that.

“I’m sorry,” Hector started hurriedly. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” Alucard interrupted. “It’s fine.”

Hector felt his heart lurch. With a start, he realized he was beginning to fear a beating, despite nothing in Alucard that would have suggested so. He began to shake uncontrollably.

“Hector?” Alucard asked after a few seconds of nervous silence.

He inhaled and glanced up at Alucard. “I’m fine. Just…” he trailed off. “Carmilla.”

Alucard’s hand was on his back, and before Hector knew it he’d dissolved into tears.

“It’ll take time,” came Alucard’s voice, ever-easy and soothing. “But you’ll get better. You only escaped yesterday.”

 _He’d only escaped yesterday_. The thought horrified Hector. The longest month of his life had just ended yesterday. The day before, he’d become accustomed to cold chains and sore feet and punishments at the whim of a power-hungry vampire.

Hector continued to sob, completely at the mercy of his own overwhelming emotions, and leaned into Alucard’s chest. It was surprisingly warm and comfortable, and Alucard did not protest his affection.

It was Alucard’s steady breathing that eventually hushed him. Hector felt the usual satisfied exhaustion of crying once his tears subsided, but he did not leave Alucard’s embrace.

“Do you plan on staying here all day?” Alucard teased.

“If only,” Hector sniffed, parting from him only to answer. He thought he saw a blush creep into Alucard’s cheeks, but Hector was too exhausted to point it out. Instead, he rested his head on his shoulder.

“We should head for the castle. It’ll take us a few hours on foot to get there.”

But Hector did not respond or move until he heard the door to their room creak and Julia across the table from them.

“You finished,” she said happily. Without making any comment regarding the men in front of her, she pressed the tray to her chest and stood.

“Do you need any help?” Alucard offered.

“You’re busy,” Julia teased, and left the room before Alucard could protest.

When Julia returned in the afternoon to Alucard and Hector’s room, she was met with expectant stares. Julia raised her eyebrows and glanced between the two of them. She was about to open her mouth to ask if she had done something wrong, but Alucard spoke first.

“We plan to go back to my father’s castle. Together.”

Plan? So they had made plan while they made crumbs and leftover sauce of the breakfast she left them?s

Hector was still worn, folded in on himself and shivering slightly from the chill in Julia’s cottage. He did not weep now or look on with fearful eyes, but Julia doubted all his pain had vanished after a few hours of sleep. Alucard sat beside him, not breaking contact, as if that was all it took to keep Hector from shattering.

“I’ll prepare food for your journey, then. Did you like the pickled fish?”

Julia tried to ignore the pang of jealousy that ripped through her. They would leave her alone here. She wanted to convince them to stay for a while longer.

To her surprise, it was Hector who reached out and clasped her hand. “Come with us,” he said.

Julia looked sadly between the two men and slipped her hand out of Hector’s grasp. “I don’t want to get in the way of…”

“You won’t get in the way of anything, Julia,” Alucard insisted.

“I’d rather stay here,” she said. “Really.”

She watched quietly as the two of them glanced between each other.

“I have my herbs and medicine to look after. Besides, we’re neighbors now. I can visit any time.”

Alucard placed his hand over Julia’s and smiled. “We would love that.”

Spring had come, but it was no less cold to Hector who’d lost weight from malnourishment and already was prone to feeling chill. Alucard took notice of this immediately and without asking, draped his coat around Hector’s shoulders.

“This is huge,” Hector said. And sniffed. “And it smells.”

“Forgive me,” Alucard replied drily.

Despite his words, Hector smiled and let Alucard lead him down the Carpathians and towards Dracula’s castle on the horizon. It stood as imposing as it always had, and yet, something about it was eerily quiet. Dormant, even. Hector supposed it hadn’t moved in the last month.

Their walk was largely full of silence. Save for the few touches here and there of Alucard leading him one way or steadying him down a particularly steep slope, they hardly interacted at all. Hector was still overwhelmed by everything, and he supposed Alucard might have been, too. Only about an hour into their walk did Hector say anything at all.

“I need to rest.” Hector could feel his legs giving way, and didn’t wait for Alucard’s permission to sit down.

“I’ll carry you,” Alucard offered.

“You will not.”

“Very well,” Alucard sat next to Hector.

The silence that had pervaded their walk had just been that. Now it was suddenly awkward. Neither of them were lost in thoughts, or focused on the road ahead, but sat trying to think of a conversation.

“If you bring up the weather, I’ll kill you,” Hector joked.

“I’d like to see you try.”

“All right,” Hector said, standing. “Let’s just walk. This is more agonizing than walking on sore feet.”

“Like I said, I can carry—”

“No.”

Alucard shrugged and stood.

Hector entered the castle and sneezed.

“Not catching a cold, are you?” Hector wasn’t sure at this point if he found Alucard’s endless quips annoying or endearing. He had too many other things to process in the moment, so he let the thought go for now.

“Stop babying me,” Hector replied. To which Alucard grabbed a fistful of Hector’s cheek. Hector elbowed him. He was on the cusp of snapping at him, until Alucard’s demeanor shifted to something gentler.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Hector answered. “Though I won’t lie and say I’ve no emotions to process.”

“This place is for processing.” Alucard ran his hand over Hector’s head. He sighed and looked as if he wanted to say something else, but was cut short by the bark of a small dog.

“Cezar!” Hector cried out, leaning down to pet him. But Cezar was just as eager as him and vaulted into Hector’s arms. He licked Hector’s cheek.

“What kind of name is Cezar for a dog?”

Hector glared.

But his glare was met with apathy. In fact, something else entirely seemed to have caught Alucard’s attention. He lifted Cezar’s intact paw and rubbed a finger over his matted fur. There was an indentation around his whole leg, as if something had been pressing against it for the last month, like the marks around Hector’s neck.

“He must have been trapped somewhere when the castle fell,” Hector realized.

“Much like his owner,” Alucard replied.

Cezar panted eagerly with his mouth open, apparently undisturbed by where he had been previously. He whined into Hector’s chest, content that he was with his owner now. Hector sighed and smiled and pet Cezar’s head.

“Unlike you, I am wholly human and need food every so often to survive.”

“I don’t know what in my demeanor implied anything to the contrary.”

“Instead of rebutting my every word, why don’t you go and be useful and pass me the tomatoes.”

“No need to snap. You’re hungry and irritable and you’ll calm down once you eat something.”

“And you would know all about me?”

Hector furrowed his brows, and for some reason, that ended the argument. The dark had finally settled and Hector could feel acid burrowing a hole into his stomach from hunger. He knew Alucard was right about being irritable. Maybe some of it was his whole ordeal, too. But he was too angry to care if Alucard was right about anything. He’d thought him soft and tender, but he was irritating and didn’t seem to know when to keep his mouth shut. Maybe Alucard was getting irritable, too. Hector half wanted to open his mouth and ask if a cup of blood would shut him up.

Hector leaned over the kitchen table. Dracula’s castle had always fascinated him, but he’d never particularly felt the need to come down to the kitchens to cook himself something. Dracula’s servants usually left food out at the dinner table or right to Hector’s room. But with Dracula gone and Alucard ignorant of some of its functions, Hector would have to cook for himself now.

The stove was what fascinated him most. It didn’t need wood or flint for a fire to burn. It came on by itself, like magic, and heated the oil in his pan quickly.

Hector pried each of six eggplants out of the pan and set them into a tray.

“You know you can use tools for that,” Alucard said. Hector frowned again but said nothing in response.

Alucard’s smile went crooked at that and he seemed to realize his error. “What are you making?” he asked instead.

“İmam bayıldı.”

“What’s that?”

“Eggplant stuffed with onions, tomatoes and green chilis.” Hector smiled and remembered the first time an old man had invited him into his house and cooked it for him. “It means ‘the imam fainted’. There are stories about what in the food made this supposed imam faint, but I like the one this old man told me.”

“And?” Alucard looked wide-eyed like a child at Hector’s story, and for a moment, Hector could have forgiven him for his spiteful tongue.

“He said the cook was a Devil Forgemaster like me and the imam saw his pet dog with one eye and ribs sticking out as he served the dish.”

“He must have been joking.”

“Maybe. But it made me feel better when I was a child.”

When the onions and tomatoes and chilis finally cooked through, Hector pried open each of the eggplants and stuffed them with a spoon. Too hungry to bother to look for a knife, Hector tore the eggplant with a spoon and his finger and swallowed it without waiting for it to cool.

His mood lifted immediately.

“Try it,” he said to Alucard.

Alucard looked hesitant at the unfamiliar food, but he let Hector feed him with the spoon.

“This is good,” he said in surprise.

“Better than anything else you’ve had?” Hector asked with a smug grin.

“To be fair, my mother had a peasant background and would have eaten fried shoes, so my standards have never been that high.” Alucard didn’t wait for Hector to offer the rest and picked at one of the eggplants with a finger. “But it’s good.”

“Wait till I make you try the salep.”

“What’s that?” Alucard asked eagerly.

“A warm drink. Just wait. Let me heat the milk.”

Hector turned towards the second fascination of Dracula’s kitchen: the cold storage that kept food from spoiling. Before he could take another step, however, Alucard tugged on his sleeve.

He said nothing at first and stared at Hector’s dark hands. “What is it?” Hector asked, suddenly worried.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “I know I can be…troublesome at times.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” Hector teased.

“Also,” Alucard added, ignoring his insult. “You have tomato over your face.”

Hector lifted his hand to wipe off whatever it was on his face, only for Alucard’s hand to reach out first and rub the pad of his finger over Hector’s cheek. He felt himself blush at the touch.

Alucard’s gaze held his for a moment, and before Hector could stop himself, he leaned into Alucard’s lips and kissed him. It was a short and chaste kiss, but then Hector blinked and realized what he’d done.

“I’m sorry!” he burst out and swiveled back towards the cold storage. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Alucard’s hand stopped him once more, and when Hector turned back, Alucard was blushing and smiling.

“It’s all right,” he said.

Alucard had never been in a relationship before. He’d known since he was a child that he loved only men, but had never divulged this information to either of his parents. He suspected that Lisa had always known, alongside him, but she’d never pried or teased him about the subject. She’d always just let him be, the same way she let him just be half-vampire, without any expectations or stereotypes regarding the matter.

He found himself sorely regretting it. He wished he’d told her. Or asked her advice. His parents had always been a loving, healthy couple, but he had no idea what that entailed, watching them with the innocent eyes of a child. He had no idea where this would lead. How this would work with them both being men, with one of them being human and the other half-vampire.

“Have you…” Alucard started hesitantly, letting Hector take his hand. “Have you ever done this before?”

“Yes.” Hector looked bewildered. “Haven’t you?”

“No,” Alucard admitted. “Having fangs doesn’t exactly make me…attractive to most humans.”

“Those humans are stupid.”

Alucard snorted into a laugh.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Hector declared, settling comfortably over the bed. “That should be easy enough for you. Just try not to bite me.”

“I’ll try to resist the temptation.”

It was Hector’s turn to snort and both of them dissolved into laughs.

Hector was the one to lead. Alucard found himself a little embarrassed at his inexperience. He’d read romance and courting manuals just as voraciously as he’d read anything else in his life. But nothing had prepared him for this. For the way his heart surged and sunk like waves crashing on the beach. For how astounding it was that Hector’s hands were just like any other humans’ hands, but somehow managed to make sparks and fire along Alucard’s back. For how lost he’d become in the kiss, how he’d forget everything awful that had happened over the last few months.


End file.
